


fresh water, new growth, gentle sun

by Nemonus



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: 2000 words of pure contentment, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-27 11:16:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16701472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemonus/pseuds/Nemonus
Summary: Young Itamen, half-brother to the Sun-King, asks Aloy to teach him to ride a machine.





	fresh water, new growth, gentle sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ficfan3484](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficfan3484/gifts).



Young Itamen, half-brother to the Sun-King, asked to ride a machine, and so Aloy volunteered for this task with an exaggerated solemnity that she and Avad found uproariously funny.

To see Avad smile was a rare and beautiful gift, Aloy thought as they walked through the spring-hot Maizelands, the king holding tight to Itamen’s small hand. Palace Kestrels walked in the distance between the rows of corn to protect the king, but Aloy made an effort to forget them. With Meridian repaired after the attack by the Faro robots, a festival spirit still reigned in the city.

For Aloy, the same spirit seemed to suffuse the whole world. Once, Aloy had taken the grasses for granted. She had dashed out the door into the wilderness outside the gates of Rost’s cabin, thinking of the world as a permanent place. Now, she appreciated every field as new and temporary. She widened her eyes as if doing so would let her soak in more shades of green. All of this could have been destroyed if not for her. It would have been so easy for the Faro robots to churn this ground to dust. Instead … she shivered with joy when she felt the wind against her clothes.

She would appreciate it every day, now. Maybe every person appreciated nature more as they grew, Itamen’s racing footsteps becoming Nasadi’s measured pace. Maybe she needn’t have gone through most of an apocalypse in order to love the sharp edges of the grass against the pads of her fingers. Or maybe her awareness was an intentional choice, born from Rost’s wilder-craft as much as from the stark beauty of the Sundom’s deserts and the dangerous, warm geyser-fields of the Cut.

Itamen’s small footsteps rattled a wooden bridge as he crossed. Aloy and Avad had already discussed the fact that Itamen was not afraid of machines, but Aloy remembered that she herself had felt disoriented by the prospect of falling when she had first ridden a strider. Avad had not yet tried to ride a tame strider himself.

Nevertheless, Itamen seemed excited to try. Aloy didn’t know the first thing about raising children, but the boy’s smile and the eager way he leaned from foot to foot seemed like a good sign. So there, just outside one of the gates to the Royal Maizelands, Aloy called a strider for Itamen.

When it charged onto the path and stood calmly near Aloy, the boy stepped back once and then immediately moved forward to reach his small hands as far as he could go around the strider’s metal leg. Aloy recognized some of the scuff marks on its blue cords. This strider had carried her all across the desert, and now waited outside the city for when she needed it. She often rode chargers when traversing the more dangerous parts of the desert, since their heavier chassis and large horns offered more protection from wild machines, but the strider’s face called up soft memories of the first time she had ridden one. The short nose and blue light made the machine look calm and docile, perfect for Itamen’s first ride.

“Take your time,” Avad said to his half-brother. “I’ll boost you up when you’re ready.”

Red and blue lights cast weird glows in the forest to the east. When Aloy scanned them she found that they were snapmaws, sunbathing. She hooked a hand into the Strider’s mane of blue cords to pull it slightly closer to the bridge. The snapmaws wouldn’t come toward the path unless they were provoked, but she wanted to be careful not to expose Itamen to a dangerous machine.

She stood nearby, one hand on the strider’s flank, while Avad lifted Itamen up and taught him to hold on to the strider’s neck. The tame machine turned its head side to side, the blue light sweeping across the path. In response the young prince leaned too far to the side, and Aloy put up a hand to keep him from leaning further.

“Keep your back straight,” she said kindly. “The machine will help you balance, but you need to work with it.”

“Okay, Aloy.” Itamen narrowed his eyes at the top of the strider’s head with a look of concentration so intense Aloy had to smile. She could imagine that he adopted the same expression when watching Nasadi and Avad as they handled matters of the Sundom.

“Ready to move forward?” Aloy asked.

“Ready.”

“Just squeeze its sides with your feet.”

Aloy wasn’t certain that the weight of the little prince would be enough for the strider to recognize a rider. In fact, she hadn’t thought before about how the striders knew to move forward, or whether there was a minimum of weight they would carry. Whatever GAIA had intended them for originally, this one seemed content to carry a small boy. It ambled forward. Aloy looked over its back to see Avad smiling tightly, the weight of his role struggling with his happiness in the moment. Judging by the pride in his eyes, the happiness was winning.

With Aloy and Avad on either side, Itamen and the strider walked around in a circle on the road. Aloy showed him how to make the machine stop by pressing in with his heels. He had to stretch to reach, but if the strider had any failsafes for small riders, it didn’t activate them. Although she could have shown him how to encourage the strider into a trot, she decided that it was best for Itamen—and Avad—to move slowly for now.

“Where now?” Itamen piped up after several circles. “I want to go exploring, like Aloy.”

“Let’s not bring the strider into the Maizelands,” Avad said immediately, a note of worry creeping into his voice. He and Aloy glanced at the guards at the same time, a movement that made her feel distinctly like a child who had snuck an extra portion at dinner. She laughed, which distracted Itamen for a moment. She met Avad’s eyes and saw a complex conversation: _I want to go in, but we mustn’t upset the guards, and Itamen must learn, and I respect your daredevil spirit, but the strider might trample the corn._

“That’s right,” Aloy said, for Itamen’s benefit. “I’m not allowed to ride over the bridge either.”

Itamen nodded at her solemnly. She glanced at the strider, automatically anthropomorphizing it and checking whether it looked like it had an opinion on the matter. Judging by the steadiness of the blue-white light, it didn’t.

“I can’t make an exception for you, as much as I’d like to,” Avad said, looking up at his half-brother and patting the boy on the knee. “Keep the strider away from the main path. It can’t be allowed into the city.”

“Really, not even for me?” Itamen said.

“A Sun-King must follow the same rules as his people.” Avad said.

“We’ll ride along the bank, then.” Aloy placed her hand against the strider’s neck to guide it. “I know a place where we can see one of the waterfalls.” The blue cords were slightly warmer than the gray metal of the legs.

With Avad doing the same on the other side, the three of them moved off into the forest. While Avad and Itamen were both nervous at first as the strider picked its way around rocks and the larger bushes, they gradually relaxed as Aloy lead them along the river bank.

When they reached the shadow of the bridge onto the mesa, they crossed the river, cold water swirling around the strider’s legs. Aloy made sure she kept an eye on both Itamen, who swayed a little but stayed firmly in place on the strider’s wide back, and Avad, who showed only by his pursed lips that he was unused to wading through a shallow river in heavy-wrapped shoes.

From there, they moved into the quiet tunnel of jungle that ran west under the mesa’s grand bridge. If she looked a long way up, Aloy could see the palace, its minarets a comparatively tiny part of the stone column on which it sat. The base of the smaller mesa was lost in fog, suggestions of trees dimly visible through gray-pink murk. Bird song almost drowned out the strider’s footfalls and Itamen’s occasional comments. Even with what little she knew of children, she suspected Itamen was a quiet and well-behaved one. Unfortunately, his upbringing with Nasadi in captivity had taught him the importance of hiding his feelings. Aloy hoped that Itamen’s quietness now was a sign of contentment.

In the fog, colors washed out to white, black and gray. Aloy was grateful for Avad and Itamen at her side; it would have been eerie to walk in the fog alone except for the Focus on her ear. Itamen held tight to Avad’s arm.

“Not long to the waterfall now,” Avad said.

They emerged through the deep, foggy forest under the bridge, to the waterfall beyond. The wide lake reflected all the colors of the cliffs: rust-red, sand-tan, and the clear blue of the sky. Songbirds, morning doves, and geese called, as loud as music. One particular rock, dappled with the shadows of leaves, caught the sun until it seemed to glow orange-gold. 

Then Itamen saw the waterfall, and brought the strider to a stop all on his own so that he could look far, far up into the mist and see the sun shining on the rushing water at the top. Aloy heard Avad talking to Itamen about walking around the shore, promising him that he could ride the strider back. Avad helped Itamen off the machine moved further down the shore, near where the lake met the mesa.

Aloy was filled with a pleasant sense of being isolated but not alone.

She sank down onto the grass. After the ride and the heat of the jungle sweat slicked her skin, but it was easy to reach down and wash her hands in the water. She rubbed her hands across her face, then dipped into the water again and cooled the back of her neck. The breeze on the back of her neck felt like freedom, so she gathered her hair over her shoulder to let the wind tickle her skin.

Not far from her, Avad followed Itamen as the boy looked under the leaves of plants and followed insects along the shore. Aloy rested her eyes on the cloud of fog at the base of the waterfall, then traced the line of rushing, white water to the top of the cliff. The sun was half-obscured by the mesa, so that the light did not hurt her eyes and instead gilded the bronze tops of the towers. The thought of the Carja using their worship of a holy, merciless Sun to justify slaughter still soured her stomach.

And, another uneasy revelation:

She couldn’t see the Spire from here. It cast an alien shadow over so many parts of the world, from the Sundom deserts to Rost’s forest cabin, but here … she could pretend it didn’t exist.

A shadow had fallen over her thoughts, but Avad and Itamen’s quiet voices reminded her to look for the light. Avad would use this day, as he was surely using others, to teach Itamen to follow what seemed, thankfully, to be the boy’s natural aversion to violence and power-hunger. If history was kind, Itamen would grow up thinking of the world as a place populated not only by ferocious thunderjaws, but also gentle striders and people who cared for them.

The heat of the jungle combined with the wind and spray from the lake mixed into a pleasant, if a bit too humid, warmth. She touched her hands to her own face, enjoying the warmth of her skin, and smelled crushed leaves and undergrowth from the jungle she had walked through. The thundering rush of the waterfall and the quiet clicks as the strider shifted both spoke of GAIA’s victory over what could have been a second end of the world. There would be no aggressive machines here, no humans looking for a fight. She basked in the presence of herself, and Avad and Itamen discovering bugs and eddies in the water, and in the knowledge that GAIA had created this world for them. If she knew any songs they were these: fresh water, growing plants, gentle sun.

 


End file.
